Tuesday, February 2 J 982 page 4 Daily Nebraskan Fditorial Campaign rhetoric hardly matters to the hungry It's about time to brace up for the onslaught of election campaign rhetoric that is certain to flood the media from now through the summer and up to election day in November. Everybody who wants to be anybody, whether he or she is running for a seat in Congress or the ASUN presidency, is going to tell why he or she has the plan that is going to make our lives better. Sometimes in the midst of this campaign swirl, we lose track of all of the people who don't give a damn who wins or loses American elections. The verbal battles we wage and the column space we burn on this or that education policy, or this or that signal of solidarity with the people of Poland, are absolutely meaningless to the millions of people worldwide whose main occupation is finding a way Worst winter ever alters campus look By Bill Rush I saw a person's bare nose the other day and almost had him arrested for indecent exposure. Imagine - a whole nose was exposed in this weather. He was obviously a flasher or worse. The meterologists say that this is the worst winter Ne braska has had in a hundred years. Why did they have to remind us how cold it is? I know it's cold. I got the mess age when icicles formed on my mustache as I made my way to Avery Hall or as we journalism students call it, Slavery Hall. I noticed some changes on campus that hinted at how cold it is. Joggers are now carrying battery-operated space heat ers and wearing battery-operated socks. They look like a modern-day version of the ancient Greek fellow who had his lantern lit for an honest man. The only difference is that today's runners are looking for the next flight to Miami. A person was pouring hot dorm coffee into his car's gas tank. The car died anyway. (The coffee killed it ). Another motorist was uncovering his car's engine. The night before a night when the temperature was lower than 20 degrees below zero - he tucked his car in for the night with the greatest of care. I could empathize with those who pamper their vehicles in cold weather, because I drive my 1981 Everest & Jennings into my room, park it by the heater, sing a lullaby to it and carefully put a quilt over it. Of course, my vehicle is an electric wheelchair. Everybody has his mechanical master who demands extra tender loving care during subzero weather. There are other changes on campus. Nobody can tell where the walks start and the grassy lawns begin; tow away zones are hidden from everyone except the campus police, so that a law-abiding person has to park as though he is having a picnic in a grassy mine field ; the muggers are taking honest work; and a person in a wheelchair can earn a respectable income by attaching a snowplow blade or a giant pick to his chair. But, there's a bright side to the insanity caused by this weather. Valentine's Day is coming, and I'm planning to brave this cold, as are many, by cuddling up with some thing nice, warm, and cozy - my electric space heater. Editorials do not necessarily express the opinions of the Daily Nebraskan's publishers, the NU Board of Regents, the University of Nebraska and its employees or the student body. UPSP 144-080 Editor: Martha Murdock; Managing editor: Janice Pigaga; News editor: Dan Epp; Associate news editors: Patti Gallagher, Kathy Stokebrand; Editorial assistant: Pat Clark; Night news editor: Kate Kopischke; Assistant night news editor: Tom Hassing; Entertain ment editor; Bob Crisler; Sports editor: Larry Sparks; Art dir ector: Dave Luebke, Photography chief: D. Eric Kircher; Graphic designer: John G. Goecke. Copy editors: Mary Ellen Behne, Bob Glissmann, Leslie Ken drick, Susan MacDonald, Cathy Nichols, Melinda Norris, Kathy O'Donnell, Patty Pryor, Peggy Reichardt, Lori Siewert, Michiela Thuman, Tricia Waters. Business manager: Anne Shank-Volk; Production manager: Kitty Policky; Advertising manager: Art K. Small; Assistant adver tising manager: Jerry Scott. Publications Board chairperson: Margy McCleery, 472-2454 Professional adviser: Don Walton: 473-7301. The Daily Nebraskan is published by the UNL Publications Board Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters, except during vacation. Address: Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St., Lincoln, Neb., 68588. Telephone: 472-2588. All material in the Daily Nebraskan is covered by copyright. Second class postage paid at Lincoln, Neb., 68510. Annual subscription: $20, semester subscription: $11. "POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Daily Nebraskan. 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St., Lincoln. Neb., 68588." not to starve. Maybe people in Nebraska and places like it are too far removed from that sort of thing; after all, we practically wallow in food, in an area 2,000 miles from the nearest language into which the term 'Reaganomics' doesn't trans late. So we focus our attentions on projects like raising $100,000 to give to a football coach, never stopping to wonder how many people that $100,000 could feed. At least, one would hope that it's just a case of oversight; the alternative is that these people believe that giving money to the football coach is really more important than hunger. So, in this election year, we should remember that if there is anything that should be outside the realm of politics, it is food. There is no economic theory, no version of morality, no political entity or cause so great and so right that it overshadows the need to feed people. The stomach is the perfect Marxist; if it does not have food, and somebody else does, it feels entitled to some of that food. By November, of course, all of this is likely to be for gotten as the candidates finish their respective blitz kriegs. By the same token, this space will doubtless be turned over to protracted discussions about political or social items that will seem at the time to be of foremost importance. That is why this is the best time to step back from the political hassle and try to put things in perspective. Reagan calm, firm on his policy After weeks of frantic media rumors that he would reverse his promise and call for new taxes, Ronald Reagan turned out not to have changed his mind or his policy one iota. In the last month or two, Washington reporters have given a pretty fair imitation of what, back in the bad old days of ethnic jokes, we used to call a "Chinese fire drill": William Rusher dashing hither and yon without any plan or reason what ever. Suzy Smartstuff, from her apparently permanent roost on the White House lawn, would smirk into the camera and tell us that she had it on the best of authority that Reagan had panicked in the face of the latest "pro jection" of the 1983 deficit and would call for a slow down on the income tax reductions passed last year. Sam Knowitall, dean of the press corps, confided to his readers that the president had changed his mind (again) and would call instead for S40 billion in excise taxes on hair oil and bar cheese. Harold Hotnews, the noted peephole columnist, would then scoop them both with a knowing wink and a report that Reagan, thinking better of those excise taxes, had staggered around indecisively until, disregarding the unanimous advice of his staff, the bitter protests of Republican leaders on Capitol Hill and the petition signed by the entire diplomatic corps, he decided petulantly to go down with his ship. The general impression was chaotic. But when the smoke blew away last Tuesday evening, there was Reagan, smiling calmly and saying, quite simply that there would be no new taxes. He took care to point out the best of all possible reasons for this: Increasing taxes doesn't reduce budget deficits. The Democrats in Congress are bellyaching about the "projected" deficit be cause they would love to maneuver Reagan into calling for higher taxes in an election year. But if he succumbed to their pressure and raised taxes, where do you suppose the increased revenues would go? Right back into corrupt and swollen welfare handouts, starting with Tip O'Neill's district - that's where. But Reagan wasn't content merely to stand firmly by policies already in place. He dramatically seized the initiative, as he had done last year, by giving Congress something new to think about: a "new federalism," under which states and localities would assume responsibility for federal programs costing $47 billion a year, including food stamps and Aid to Families with Dependent Children. In return, the federal government would assume the full burden of the soaring cost of Medicaid. Next morning the Washington press corps was busy counting all the reasons why Reagan's proposals don't stand a chance: The changes must be enacted piecemeal, rather than in a single gaudy package like last year's bud get and tax cuts; they would involve unpopular increases in state and local taxes; etc., etc. But that's the very sort of knowing analysis that these same pundits were peddling last year at this time, and they wound up with egg all over their faces. What doesn't look merely ridiculous, unlike the efforts to make Reagan seem indecisive or ineffective, is the truly merciless and brutally partisan jobbing the presi dent's policies have been getting at the hands of the nat ional television news programs. Day after day, night after night, these three mightly megaphones have thundered forth the charge that Reagan's budget cuts are hacking deep into the flesh and bone of the deserving poor. To "prove" this, some carefully collected and mysteriously articulate "victim" is singled out, and we are fed a tendentious and thoroughly one-sided account of her life and hard times. Typically, she has been caught in some freakish bureaucratic bind whereby (allegedly) she can't, thanks to Reagan, collect all the federal checks she is accustomed to. No rejoinder to these heartbreaking accounts is allowed, apparently on the theory that none is conceivable. Thank heaven polls show Americans know that clean ing up a mess the size of Washington, D.C., takes time. Thank heaven, too, that the job is under way at last. (c) 1982 Universal Press Syndicate